Friday, January 20, 2017

After hearing K-4 students complaining that there are not any birds around, I decided to make a chart for the hallway. When someone reports a bird they saw to me, I put up the photo up with a tally mark. Then as students report birds they see each child gets a tally mark. I believe that it has made them more aware of birds because the reports have picked up.

There is room for more birds, but it may be difficult for the kids to find them in town.

We have been learning about habitats and this lesson on the Gulf Ecosystem was especially interesting. The kids really liked it. We compared that to the living things in our area and they noticed that it is really different.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Each child received his/her very own new bird field guide today. Last spring I sent out a request for field guides on my birds listserv and very generous people were nice enough to purchase field guides for my classroom or donate the money. Now each child K-4 has a bird field guide of one kind or another. This particular guide that I gave the kids today has color tabs to help the child locate the bird more quickly.

I challenged the K-4 Chickadee Bird Club to find different species of birds. They report the birds to me and then I add them to the chart along with a tally mark. This is what we have so far. They are pretty interested in checking out the chart each morning!

I carved shapes into potatoes and the kids dipped them into white paint. They stamped them onto the paper to create a wonderful snow scene. After the paintings dried, they used Q-tips to add the details to the painting. I thought they turned out really cute!